Mama there goes that man! Thank God! Mark Jackson has been named head coach of the Warriors. You know, in spite of him having zero coaching experience in his career. Where else in the world can you get a top-level job with zero job experience (and in some cases be successful)? This is why we love the NBA, folks. No, not because of the guy getting a job. We love the NBA because we will now be able to watch it without hearing Mark Jackson drone on and on with his same schtick every other game! Too bad he won't start his new gig until after the Finals.

(Oh, and be sure you check out The Basketball Jones and their take on Mark Jackson's job interview.)

Now, the important question: who will replace Mark Jackson on ABC and ESPN broadcasts? If we can't get Bill Walton or Shaq, who else would be a good pick? Post your thoughts in the comments.

Game 4 of the NBA Finals:Heat at Mavericks, ABC, 9pm(Heat lead series 2-1): According to the Elias Sports Bureau, this is the first time since 1998 we've seen consecutive games decided by two or fewer points in the NBA Finals. Whether you like the Heat and/or the Mavericks, you have to admit this is compelling basketball. Now just think of what this series would be like if it wasn't just Dirk playing one-on-five against the entire Miami Heat team! (Wait, you mean he has teammates on the floor? Really? You'd think I would notice something like that. Hmm.)

While on a road trip with my old college roommate Corey this past week, we watched part of games 2 and 3 on crappy motel TVs with failing picture tubes. This seemed appropriate when Corey asked "Good God, Juwan Howard's still in the league???" It would have felt wrong to watch Juwan Howard shoot free throws on a nice flat-panel LCD screen. Hell, watching on a fuzzy 857 pound CRT TV set with green and purple spots burned in the corners was kind of a stretch. Juwan Howard's age should probably be best experienced watching on one of those old cabinet TV sets from the 1950s. Or maybe in the crude drawings Grock left on the cave wall during the last Ice Age. (This was before the basketball itself was invented and the game was played with weathered rocks, of course.)

It will be funny if David Lee returns to form and they win another 10 games and then everyone will say it was Mark "I'll take good offense over good defense any day of the week" Jackson (maybe that's how he got hired). Speaking of which, it's too bad we won't be able to play the MJ drinking game anymore. We could've added some more to the list, like:

The bottom line isThere's a price to payMay I have this dance?No question about it!An outSTANDING job of...Any reference to "airspace" and the closing thereof

Down the entire bottle if he talks about throwing the ball into a lake.

From the looks of it, I'd say that Mike Miller is trying to "ride the stimutacs". Out of all the great Sealab episodes, my favorite is "Waking Quinn", the one where he gets repeatedly electrocuted by Stormy, if only for the interlude where Marco and Murphy re-enact the "are you an assassin" scene from Apocalypse Now.stephenie g- Those lines would fit in great for the Mark Jackson poetry hour.

Will and AnacondaHL -- Nice. It's like a koala bear crapped a rainbow in my brain. I'll bet your lymph nodes are as big as cats! Quit being a bitch and pill me up. Insert other random Sealab 2021 quote here. Damn I miss that show.

kazam92 -- Warriors would gain some defense while losing an alpha dog scorer, which I'm sure many fans will not appreciate. And I think Philly could use someone who can take over a game for stretches on offense. Ellis could fit that role.

So what's up with Bosh's comments about "you have to let sleeping dogs lie"? Is that supposed to be helpful advice for his opponents? Or is that meant to be intimidating coming from Chris Bosh. I suppose he's going to ratchet up his flopping and crying. Be afraid, mavs!

Good Lord, Bosh and his flopping antics are irritating me so much to the point where I want to Karate kick him in the man region. I know it sounds drastic but it seems like it won't hurt him though because he shows no signs of having any balls.

@Aaron, come on man, give him some credit. Sure he only scored 8 points on 11 shots, but he shut down Jason Terry to the tune of 6/15, 17 points. That's a superhuman defensive effort. The man just can't win with you, can he?

I used to be an atheist. But then I witnessed the healing love of the almighty Dirk, peace and blessings be upon him. And brother Chandler is his disciple.

LeBron looked like a big armless Rondo out there and Marion is arguably outplaying him for the series, or at least playing him to a draw. All the same, imagine if LeBron missed a critical freethrow and had butter fingers on the inbound pass like Wade did.

Man every game when it comes to the 4th quarter, Miami just goes into crap mode. I hope for next year they hire an assistant with an emphasis on offense, because this is just brutal to watch. It has gotten to the point where I'm watching the game, they're up by 9 somewhere at the beginning of the 4th and all of the sudden I start feeling bad inside because I know they're going to screw it up. That shouldn't be happening, not with Wade, Lebron and Bosh on the team.

@stockton: i was wondering about the same thing too. i remember years ago, robert horry hung on the rim and dunked a rebound. the play made it into top 10 plays of the week or something. dunno if the rule has changed now.

regarding lebron:i guess doyel really got into lebron's head. maybe james tried too hard to prove that he can be dominant without scoring points, or he can lead his team to victory without having to score. also, he looked somewhat tired after the 3rd quarter. ex 1: during a breakaway layup by terry in the 4th, he only halfheartedly tried to chase him and block it, whereas usually he'd have swatted the attempt with such a force.ex 2: during a fastbreak opportunity with only small guys kidd and barea on his way, he missed the layup badly, though to his credit, he still managed to secure the rebound.

@Marcos J: if we talk about salaries lebron's not even the highest paid second banana around. lebron this year: 14,500,000, Pau "the ultimate second banana" Gasol 17,823,000, JRich is over 17m too...and what about Arenas who's not even a banana at this point? Or the ghost of Redd? Kirilenko? Vagina Carter? (thanks shamsports for the salaries)Shit it sounds like I've become a lebron fanboy in the last couple of days, but really I hate the guy, just wanted to put things into perspective.

Even though I get what you're saying, I wouldn't want D'Antoni on that Heat team, not even as an assistant. His schemes are not even good. Let's face it, he got lucky he had Nash and a couple of pieces that fitted in nicely during those years in Phoenix.

Anyway, I can't wait for the game on Thursday evening. I do wonder what the heck is up with Lebron, you're really not telling me a simple zone can shut him down to the point that he can't even reach double figures. Again, I think it's the lack of a consistent offensive game plan that's hurting this team. I'm still confident the Heat will win the series though because all hating aside, you can't honestly say Dallas deserves to win the title based on what they've shown during these Finals.

As far as the hanging on the rim thing goes: I'm pretty sure it's never a violation as long as you are hanging on the rim to avoid injury to another player (and maybe to yourself too?), but otherwise it is. I didn't get to watch the game, though, so no idea if this was the actual situation.

My vote for MJ's replacement would definitely be Shaq - hearing him and JVG on the same broadcast would be epic.

"you can't honestly say Dallas deserves to win the title based on what they've shown during these Finals."

Really? The Heat have been dominant throughout the playoffs, especially the fourth quarters of games -- Dallas has consistently shut them down (see Bawful's post today)and scored on their defense when it matters. Other than game 2, every game has been close wire-to-wire. Just because the Heat have been getting a lot of dunks doesn't mean those dunks count for more than 2 points.